On December 19, 1959

This season marks Sunday River’s 57th year as a ski resort. But like wine, ski resorts only get better with age. Trails are cut. Lifts are installed. And new traditions are born, like the 8th Annual Winterfest Weekend (December 16-18). This year’s festivities for our birthday party will be held at Barker—where it all began—with snowy games and bonfires.

But besides Sunday River opening in 1959 with a t-bar servicing two trails and a rope tow another, what else in history has happened on December 19? I could go back as early as the year 324 according to On This Day, but let’s start in the slightly closer past.